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Old 11-29-11, 06:54 PM   #1
scottorious
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Default radiant wall ideas.

So one of my projects hopefully will be a solar water heater. hopefully I'll have in my basement a huge tank of hot water. other than hot water usage I would like to find a good use for that heat. My house has a very open floor plan and I think it would be possible to remove a wall and rebuild it as a thermal mass, out of concrete blocks. Does anyone think a centrally located radiant thermal mass would heat the open areas of the house.

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Old 11-30-11, 12:30 AM   #2
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...Does anyone think a centrally located radiant thermal mass would heat the open areas of the house...
There are quite a few things that need to be considered, such as:
  • Design temperature. How cold will it be out side when you want your wall to keep you warm?
  • R-factor. This will depend on your total wall insulation value. each layer of material in your wall will have some R-value. You will do this for every outside wall and roof, and basement, and window. You must know the R-value and area of each square foot of wall, roof, floor and window.
  • Heat load. This will be derived from your design temperature and the total BTU/hr that will escape your house... which will be a result of your R-factor for walls, roof, etc. etc.
  • Thermal wall size, in square feet.
  • Water temperature in the wall.
  • Spacing of the pipes you put in the wall to carry hot water.

So it's really not possible to intelligently answer your question, unless someone takes the coward's way out and says:

"Yes, it is possible, if you get your water hot enough."

I think your best bet would be to get a hydronics design program like Watts Radiant, RadiantWorksPro, which was free last time I looked.

You could fool the program a bit and tell it that the thermal "wall" is actually the floor, and just add the real floor to the list of walls. RadiantWorks will figure the rest out for you.

Good luck with your project, there is very much to learn before you build that wall.

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Old 11-30-11, 07:09 PM   #3
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wow. I'll have to look into that program. That reply was a quite a bit more complicated than I thought this would be.
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Old 11-30-11, 07:32 PM   #4
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wow. I'll have to look into that program. That reply was a quite a bit more complicated than I thought this would be.
A masonry wall is heavy and expensive and changing it is difficult.

Numbers are small and light and easily changed.

Ask me how I know...

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Old 12-01-11, 12:21 AM   #5
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Does anyone think a centrally located radiant thermal mass would heat the open areas of the house.
In the center of my house is the chimneys to my wood insert downstairs, what used to be an oil furnace and to my fireplace upstairs. It's basically 4'x7'x16' of solid brick. lighting the insert downstairs and leaving it running for a few hours gets the brick work behind it up to about 40C, maybe 45C on real hot burns. upstairs the brick work is usually mid 20's 3 feet off the floor. when you walk by you can feel the warmth.

Having said that the outer rooms would be damn cold if that was my only way of moving the heat. I suck the heated air from near the insert into the cold air return of the furnace and pump it around the house using the circulating fan. I also set up a fan on a stand and use it to push air up the stairs sometimes. Those combined keep the outer rooms warm enough but still cool.

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